Indonesia’s purchase of 42 Dassault Rafale multirole combat aircraft from France, has sparked concerns of a renewed arms race in the Asia-Pacific region.
Before the ink on the US$8.1 billion Rafale deal even had time to dry, it was announced that the United States had approved a possible sale of 36 Boeing F-15EX Eagles to the republic, designated F-15IDs. That contract, under the Foreign Military Sale (FMS) arrangement, is pegged at a staggering US$13.9 billion.
As part of the package, Indonesia will also get 87 General Electric F110-GE-129, or Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 afterburning turbofan engines, 45 AN/APG-82(v)1 Advanced Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars, 80 Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing Systems or JHMCS helmets, 40 AN/AAQ-13 LANTIRN navigation pods, and 40 AN/AAQ-33 Sniper Advanced Targeting Pods.
With the exception of the 2019, US$8 billion sale of 66 F-16 Block 70/72s to Taiwan, the sale of 105 F-35 A/Bs to Japan in 2020 (valued at US$23 billion), and the highly contentious AUKUS deal between Australia, the United Kingdom and the US, the Indonesian deal marks the single biggest weapons acquisition programme by any country in Southeast Asia within the last 12 months.
“Indonesia will now be a regional military power, on a par with Singapore and Australia,” a defence analyst told Twentytwo13.
Singapore has one of the best-equipped armed forces in the region. Australia, meanwhile, recently conducted a force modernisation exercise, with the Royal Australian Air Force’s acquisition of Boeing’s F/A-18F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers, and Lockheed Martin’s F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters.
The Royal Australian Navy is also looking to replace its ageing Collins-class attack boats with hunter-killer submarines. Options include the nuclear-powered SSN-688 Los Angeles class submarines from the US, and Britain’s new attack subs – the Astute class.
Some say that Indonesia’s arms binge is nothing more than a force modernisation exercise.
“However, developments in the South China Sea over the past decade, geo-politics, and geo-strategy have played a major role in the defence build-up, not only in Indonesia, but in the Asia-Pacific,” added the analyst.
Underpinning this is the threat – real or perceived – posed by China’s hegemony. Feeling the brunt, is Taiwan.
On Jan 23, Taipei scrambled its fighters to intercept 39 People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) aircraft in the latest uptick in tensions. The incident took place near the south-western part of Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ), close to the Pratas Islands, which Taiwan controls. The Chinese formation included 34 fighters plus four electronic warfare aircraft and a single bomber.
In a Feb 10 online forum, Dr Dino Patti Djalal, chairman of Foreign Policy Community Indonesia (FPCI) and the republic’s former ambassador to the US, said that the emerging arms build-up in the Indo-Pacific region is because “this is where the geo-political, and economic weight of the world is shifting to”.
“There is plenty of competition and rivalries… Political tension is rising because of the different, competing geo-political, security, and economic concepts and architecture at play.”
Former Indonesian cabinet minister Andi Widjajanto was unequivocal when he said that the region was no longer in the military modernisation phase.
“We are seeing the continuous development of China’s military build-up, since the early 2000s. For me, this is no longer a force modernisation exercise … We are already in the phase of an arms build-up. The next question is whether China can adopt new technologies and launch a ‘revolution in military affairs’ (RMA).”
RMA is defined as the inclusion, or expansion of new military technologies to shift the balance in an engagement. An example is the use of precision-guided weapons in the 1991 Gulf War, which completely altered the modern battlefield.
China has been at the forefront of this renewed push, with an increasing emphasis in its digital warfare capability, and the development of hypersonic missiles and satellite-based weapons.
“In his paper about three years ago, Michael E. O’Hanlon (a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution specialising in defence and foreign policy issues) stated that there will be seven new military technologies that will enable China to initiate its own RMA.
“Now, the question is, do we rely on regional arms control – which does not exist in our region – or do we rely on ‘soft’ mechanisms like Asean and so on?” asked Andi.
Malaysia’s over-reliance on diplomacy is a cause for concern.
“Our defence spending has not grown beyond US$3 billion in the last three or four years. It is nowhere near Singapore’s, or Indonesia’s,” said the defence analyst.
Poor fiscal planning, rampant corruption and leakages, and a sluggish ringgit have exacerbated the problem. As a result, Malaysia has not been able to deal with territorial incursions effectively and forcefully.
From 2016 to 2019, there have been 89 incursions by China, the most significant one occurring on May 31, 2021, when 16 PLAAF military aircraft entered the Malaysian Maritime Zone (MMZ) in the Kota Kinabalu Flight Information Region (KK FIR).
Malaysia needs to seriously reconsider the urgency of its defence posture in light of recent developments in the region.
While diplomacy is the ideal recourse in any dispute, it helps if you carry a big stick.
